History of the Plow. 67 



The letters pcateiit were signed by John Achims, President, and 

 Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State, and their legality was 

 certified to by Charles Lee, Attorney General, on the 26th of 

 June, 171)7. Fig. 61 is a correct delineation of this plow. 



jFigr. 6/. 



Charles Newbold, the inventor of the first cast iron plow ever 

 made in America, was born in the township of Chesterfield, Bur- 

 lington county. New Jersey, about the year 1780, and in 1804, 

 married Hope, the daughter of David Sands, who lived a few 

 miles south of Newbursfh, N. Y. He was endowed with a large 

 share of energy and genius, Avhich developed themselves in the 

 formation of so many schemes and contrivances, which succeeded 

 one another so rapidly in his teeming brain, that he had no time 

 to carry any one of them into successful operation. He had a 

 grand scheme for founding three cities on the Hudson river, to be 

 called Faith, Hope and Charity. These were to be the centres, 

 respectively, of trades, manufactures and commerce. They were 

 to be connected together by the best possible roads, as well as 

 w^ater communication, and from the central city a grand road 

 across the continent, similar to the Cumberland road, was to con- 

 nect the Hudson river with the Pacific ocean. From this central 

 trunk road numerous lateral roads were to be made to diveroe 

 in every direction throughout the entire continent, so that the 

 whole trade and commerce of the country should finally centrc^' 

 in Faith, Hope and Charity. His cotemporaries thought these 

 notions exceedingly visionary, and some of them thought they 

 afforded unmistakable indications of insanity ; but a road already 

 exists in an unbroken line, at this day, from Newburgh to the base 

 of the Rocky mountains, and in a few years more, though Faith, 

 Hope and Charity are yet unbuilt, his grand idea of a connection 

 between their sites and the Pacific ocean, by a railroad over the 

 whole route, with lateral communications over the whole United 



